What are my chances of getting into these colleges.

Chance Me / Match Me!
1

Hi. I am a junior in high school, and I have started looking at colleges. My top five are MIT, Columbia, Cornell, Harvard,
and Yale. I am thinking about double majoring in physics and math. I would like to know my chances of getting in these colleges so that either I can refine my target schools or change what I’m doing to improve my chances.

State: NH
School: Public High School
GPA: 4.18/4.33 (unweighted) (I’m pretty sure my weighted gpa is at least 4.5)
Class Rank: 9/200
ACT: 35
Haven’t taken SAT Subject Tests yet but plan to in a couple of months.
4 on AP Physics, 5 on AP Calc BC, I plan to take the AP exams for stats, chem, and psych this year.

COURSES
Summer before high school: Intro to Python Programming (MIT online)
Freshman Year: Earth Science, Honors Humanities, AP Calculus AB, Algebra 2 Accelerated, French 3, Internet Programming, Band level 2 (there are three levels), Advanced Classical Mechanics (MIT online)
Summer: HTML5 from W3C
Sophomore Year: Honors American Studies, AP Physics 1, AP Calculus BC, Band level 3, Precalculus, Research Biology
Summer: Studied for math competitions
Junior Year: AP Psych, AP Lang&Comp, AP Statistics, AP French 4,
Summer: Hopefully RSI, Promys, Mathcamp, one of those programs. We’ll see if I get in or not…

I basically have all A’s and A+'s in all of these courses.
(Additionally, I’m fluent in Japanese)

Senior Year: AP Computer Science A, Multivariable Calculus, some college math and physics courses (probably 4 in total).

Sports: Varsity Tennis, Karate, JV Ultimate Frisbee

Extracurriculars: Founded chess club at our school, math club, used to do robotics, used to do cybersecurity, quiz bowl (A team), debate team freshman year, Science Olympiad Club.

Awards:
7th in NH Math Talent Search (10th grade)
5th so far this year in NH Math Talent Search
3 time Exploravision Honorable Mention (Top 500 nationwide)
Silver medal at NH State Science Fair
Winner of full scholarship to Governor’s Institute of New Hampshire Mathematics program.
I was on the NH state ARML team (a prestigious math competition)
I won many math competitions in my own school during middle school, and placed 11th in the state in a high school competition. Additionally, I placed in the top 10% of everyone who took the Dartmouth Annual Math Prize Test.
I’m also doing research in cardiology in UNH with a professor.

Again, it would be greatly appreciated if someone could evaluate me and tell me what more I have to do/what I should change.
Thanks in advance!

2

Math courses look good. I was wondering what your Algebra 2 was though. How did you take both Algebra 2 and Calc AB as a freshman at the same time?

My concern is that apart from Physics you don’t have that strong of a background in the sciences (no Chemistry or did you forget to list it, not sure what research biology is).

I would advise you to not take another Physics class senior year and maybe take AP Biology or AP Chemistry instead. Many of the competitive colleges want a science sequence of Biology-Chemistry-Physics. Earth Sciences would not meet the science rigor required for your schools.

Remember all of those schools are reaches. Your GPA/tests are are start but ~10% acceptance rates are a crapshoot for the most competitive candidates.

Any safety schools? Your list is top heavy with massive reach schools.

3

Thanks for your quick reply. I forgot to mention that I’m currently taking AP Chemistry. I was planning to take Electricity and Magnetism, Linear Algebra, Chaos Theory, and basic Quantum Mechanics at UNH next year. I thought that these would look much better than AP Biology. However, I am definitely still open to taking AP Biology.
Research biology is basically an introduction to biology where you are required to do a research project on the side (it is a requirement for sophomores). I entered this project in the science fair and won a silver medal for it.
Algebra 2 is basically a trigonometry course. I managed to take this and AP Calculus AB together because I already had knowledge of calculus (I learned on Khanacademy in 7th grade), so the school allowed me to take them together.
I was also looking at Georgia Tech, UCLA, University of Michigan Ann-Arbor, and UPenn. My safeties are UVM (University of Vermont), Penn State, RPI, RIT, and UT Austin.

4

OK got it. I would advise not to do so many DE classes senior year. Take AP Bio instead and focus on your ECs.

Georgia Tech is a good high match school. Since you’re OOS UCLA might be cost prohibitive. Decent chances at Michigan and UT-Austin even though you’re OOS. Your best chance Ivy acceptance would be Cornell followed by Penn. I would suggest you use your ED on one of the 2.

5

First of all, your UW is a 4.0 if you’re on a 4.0 scale. An UW GPA means there’s no weight…there’s no 5.0, so that avgs out to 4.0.

Second of all, your course load looks great. Your EC are a little weak though, just because you weren’t very consistent. I’m not judging though; I don’t know the reason for that. If it was because you weren’t passionate about them, good for you for having the guts to stop what you don’t love.

third of all, I don’t know any of these awards, but if they are actual recognized awards then those compensate for some lack of consistency in the EC area Also, going back to the subject of ECs, colleges, especially ivies & colleges like ivies, LOVE passion. They’re not looking for a laundry list. Depth over breadth. Ivy admissions officers and ivy admissions “coaches” have told me that they look for a well-FOCUSED student in order to form a well-ROUNDED class. Many people think they want well-rounded individuals while really they want passionate individuals to create a well-rounded class.

Conclusion: If the awards are good awards then I’d say you’re in range. There’s really no telling who is going to get in. People with perfect scores and uber high GPAs get rejected all the time which i’m sure you know.

You’re a competitive applicant, keep it up! Just remember if you get rejected it’s not the end of the world. Stats wise, I’m in the same position as you, so I’m hoping for the best!:slight_smile:

6

You’re in range. That means your odds are one in ten at best. They’re all ‘reach for everyone’/dream schools, as you know.
Time to focus on the hard work for college lists : finding affordable safeties you like and therefore talking ‘budget’with your parents.
Print your dream schools’ NPC results and bring them to your parents (you’ll notice the results are different depending on school). Prepare for them to be in shock. See what is affordable, what isn’t.

7

Thanks everyone for all the help!

8

I’m just here to say your username made me laugh. :slight_smile: